Sprint said its 2.5 GHz footprint has grown over the last two years and now covers approximately 70% of its LTE POPs. The company said carrier aggregation is enabling its network to outperform its competitors in major U.S. cities. Sprint believes its 2.5 GHz spectrum will be the low band spectrum of 5G. With more than 160 MHz of 2.5 spectrum on average across the top 100 U.S. markets, the company conteds that it will have more high band capacity for 5G than any other carrier in the United States.
Sprint is planning a 5G demo using millimetric band radius technology at the upcoming Copa America soccer tournament next month. The company is working with both Nokia and Ericsson to showcase 5G delivering 4K streaming content.
In its quarter and fiscal year-end financial report, Sprint posted net operating revenue of $8.1 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter, operating income of $8 million, and Adjusted EBITDA of $2.2 billion, which grew 24 percent year-over-year. The company also reported fiscal year 2015 net operating revenue of $32.2 billion, operating income of $310 million, and Adjusted EBITDA* of $8.1 billion, which grew 36 percent year-over-year.
“Fiscal 2015 was a transformational year in the turnaround of Sprint. We significantly reduced our operating expenses and stabilized operating revenues, leading to positive operating income for the first time in nine years. At the same time, we generated positive postpaid phone net additions for the first time in three years, capped off by surpassing both Verizon and AT&T for the first time on record this quarter,” said Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure.
Some highlights:
- Total LTE coverage now reaches nearly 300 million people, including approximately 70 percent being covered by the 2.5 GHz spectrum deployment.
- Total net additions were 447,000 in the fiscal fourth quarter, including postpaid net additions of 56,000, prepaid net losses of 264,000, and wholesale and affiliate net additions of 655,000.
- For the full year, total net additions were nearly 2.7 million, including postpaid net additions of more than 1.2 million, prepaid net losses of 1.3 million, and wholesale and affiliate net additions of over 2.7 million.
- Postpaid churn of 1.72 percent in the fiscal fourth quarter improved by 12 basis points year-over-year and was the lowest ever for a fiscal fourth quarter.
- For the full year, postpaid churn of 1.61 percent was also the best in company history and improved by approximately 50 basis points year-over-year.
- Sprint currently has $11 billion of committed liquidity, up from $6 billion at the end of the fiscal third quarter. The company also has an additional $1.2 billion of availability under vendor financing agreements that can be used toward the purchase of 2.5 GHz network equipment.
